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Everything Went Black

Black Flag

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iTunes Review

Before Henry Rollins joined Black Flag and encouraged them to slow down their maniacal pace, Black Flag was an intensely quick hardcore punk band that turned Chuck Berry riffs inside out while speeding past the Ramones in the power-chord department. With singers Keith Morris, Chavo and Dez Cadena handling the microphone, the group has a much more spastic sound. This collection of pre-Rollins recordings — initially released without the band’s name on it, since they were in a contractual dispute — is a solid, fascinating listen to the roots of Southern California hardcore punk. Multiple recordings of “Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie,” “Depression” and “Police Story” with different lead singers help you hear the evolving difference in the group. “Crass Commercialism” is a collection of radio ads for the band that help the listener understand the times and the changing culture. These days the attack of “Revenge” sounds expected, so much of Greg Ginn’s guitar work has been emulated by decades of “alternative” guitar players, but there was a time when these guys were the loudest, most uncompromising guys on the block.

Customer Reviews

Buy This Now

Sadly, this is no longer an Album; it is an artifact from a time when music was made by human beings, not caricatures embodying marketing surveys or the knee jerk reactions of out of touch capitalist trolls. It is a great collection of one of America's truly great punk bands, and features the three original BF singers before Henry Rollin's ego hijacked BF in a hostile take over. Damaged is a great BF album during the Rollin's era, however. Definitely check out the Crass Commercialism- That's how music was before Clear Channel & Viacom homogenized it.

Classic album

First off, I don't know why everyone hates Rollins so much. It goes beyond "I don't like his vocals" to "that rat bastard ruined the greatest hardcore band ever." Which is pretty stupid, considering he didn't write any of the music at all during their entire time together, and even the lyrics he wrote were few and far between. If anyone's ego destroyed Black Flag, that blame goes straight to Greg. Dez, Keith, and Chuck Dukowski have all been very vocal about that. Once Dukowski stopped collaborating on songs with Greg, that's when the Spinal Tap-esque "Jazz Odyssey" jazz instrumentals popped up. Oh, yeah. The album. This is all basically first run recordings of all of BF's stuff, from the Nervous Breakdown EP through Damaged. There's also a track that was never *officially* released outside of this compilation, I Don't Care. When Keith left and took the lyrics to it (along with "Wasted") with him to the Circle Jerks, they kept the music and changed the lyrics into ones blasting Keith, "You Bet I've Got Something Personal Against You." Several versions of the same song pop up, offering the singer's unique twist on it, which makes each one sound different. Personally, my favorite track is Crass Commercialism. I own reproductions of the flyers to many (if not all) of the shows mentioned in it, and its fun to look at them and listen to the radio ads, and imagine what it must have been like when it was all fresh and new. (Damaged was released a year before I was even born, so I wasn't there to witness it firsthand.) EWB, Damaged, and The First Four Years are pretty much required listening for any fan of punk, hardcore, or just any type of aggressive music.

Recommended West Coast Punk

The sounds Greg Ginn coaxed (strangled?) out of that plexi Dan Armstrong is arguably the most ferocious guitar tone ever. This particular collection of songs highlights the progression of Black Flag's best (the only omission being Dez's rendition of "Clocked In"). A must.

Biography

Formed: 1977 in Hermosa Beach, CA

Genre: Rock

Years Active: '70s, '80s

In many ways, Black Flag was the definitive Los Angeles hardcore punk band. Although their music flirted with heavy metal and experimental noise and jazz more than that of most hardcore bands, they defined the image and the aesthetic. Through their ceaseless touring, the band cultivated the American underground punk scene; every year, Black Flag played in every area of the U.S., influencing countless numbers of bands. Although their recording career was hampered by a draining lawsuit, which was followed...
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